President Obama has promised tougher sanctions against Iran after fingering Tehran in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington. But the more pressure the US imposes, the more Tehran will push back, warned Iranian professor Marandi.
Speaking at the news conference on Thursday, Obama said that the United States would not take “any options off the table in dealing with Iran.”"This is part of a pattern of dangerous and reckless behavior by the Iranian government," he said, making clear that Washington is accusing elements of the Iranian regime of being behind the alleged plot to murder Saudi ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir.Obama says there is enough evidence of Iran’s guilt and is calling on the international community to make it pay for its “reckless behavior” by further isolating Tehran.But putting such pressure on Iran, said Marandi, a professor at the University of Tehran, will not benefit the US. And the more sanctions Washington imposes, the harder the pushback it will face from Iran.“At the end of the day, the Iranians will deal with any new pressure,” he told RT. “The sanctions so far that have been imposed on Iran have not had the sort of effect the United States was looking for. But the more pressure that the United States tries to impose upon Iran, the more Iranians will push back.”Also on Thursday, the US Treasury Department confirmed that the United States is considering further sanctions against Iran's Bank Markazi. The measures are aimed at isolating it from the world economic system by barring any firm that deals with it from doing business with US financial institutions.It would make it more difficult for Iran to sell crude oil, which funds much of the government's activities.“Iranians have many means to put pressure on the United States,” Marandi said. “Look at how the situation in the region is unfolding already. You have all America’s allies in the region becoming more and more unstable. And the only country in the region which is stable is Iran.”Marandi believes that the accusations against Iran are “nonsense,” saying that “Iran gains nothing from such an operation.” “The only people who do gain is the United States, by distracting attention away from its problems at home,” he said. “If Iran did hypothetically want to carry out this operation, they could have done it in the Middle East, in the area where there are more high-profile figures and where it could be carried out much easier.”On Tuesday American authorities reported that they disrupted an Iranian government plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States and also to blow up the Israeli embassy in Washington. Two men, Mansour Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, have been charged with conspiracy to kill Saudi Arabian ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir.Shakuri remains at large, while Arbabsiar was arrested on September 29 at New York's John F. Kennedy airport. He made an appearance in a Manhattan court on Tuesday.